News, views and nihilistic ramblings from Oz Katerji, a London based writer and filmmaker. Contributor for VICE News, BBC World Service, C4News, ITV News, NBC News, AJE, High Times and The Daily Star (Lebanon).

On Tonight’s UKIP Victory and Britain’s Lurch to the Right

Although the news that Nick Griffin has lost his seat as an MEP has brought me some joy tonight I am reminded of my earliest memory of racism. I must have been no older than 6 and watching a party political broadcast on TV with my father, pointing at the mosque we used to attend together surrounded by worshippers on a sunny day on-screen.

My father had to explain to me that this was a BNP broadcast, and the man talking to camera was explaining that he wanted people like me and my father out of the country because we were Muslim. It is hard to summarise in words how that felt to a child, or how it still feels today to be a victim of racial abuse, my best description would be that it feels like getting kicked in the stomach.

But really, I take no joy from today’s results. BNP racism has not been defeated in the polls, instead it has been assimilated and overtaken by a more nuanced, socially acceptable and insidious form of bigotry and our country and the rest of Europe will suffer as a result.